This really is the only way a fan can properly protest the way their
team is being owned, run, or handled. You keep your hands in your pockets. You
don’t go to any games so you can’t buy from any of the vendors there. You stay
off the net and out of the sports stores and buy t-shirts that have a little
tag inside that says Hanes. I’ll give ou your cable subscription. You can keep
it at the level you’re at now, but if you want to get really technical, you
should also be cancelling your subscription to SNY. These are the only way you
can really make any statement. Trust me…
you play game after game and put up the kind of home attendance that
Miami does, and the league will get the message. New York is the largest media
market in the sport. It must be successful.

‘Soto’ brought up a great point yesterday on his post. It seems that a
fair amount of money that is being paid to David Wright is being deferred. Add
to this what went on with the Jason Bay money and it seems to me that there
could be around $15mil left to send in 2013 and still keep the overall payroll
under $100mil. This is Michael Bourn money. Is there something wrong here? I
mean, it seems to me that the Mets can actually compete for one of the big guys
still out there. Sure, Bourne isn’t the home run hitter you want in your
lineup, but what’s wrong with Bourne, Tejada, Wright, Davis? It’s not perfect,
but it’s a hell of a lot better than the team has right now.

“Fortunately, the team has a true
center fielder – at least with the glove – in Binghamton’s Matt Den Dekker. The
2010 fifth-round pick is a plus defender who should have no problems patrolling
a center field for the Mets. The question is whether his bat will dictate a
starting role or relegate him to the playing time typically given to a
defensive specialist. As much as he tore up Double-A in the first half of 2012
(.960 OPS), that’s how poorly he performed upon promotion to Buffalo (.629
OPS). Regardless, he’ll likely never hit for high average or limit his
strikeouts, but he has good raw power from the left side. At 25, he has to keep
performing to stay relevant. If he does, expect to see him early in 2013.”

There’s no way in hell Dekker
will open up in Queens come spring, but he could easily be on the same plane
with Zack Wheeler some summer day. There’s a part of me that just says give the
outfield to Dekker, Lucas Duda, and Kirk Nieuwenhuis and sit back and watch
what happens. My guess they would have 80+ home runs between them, but also
account for 600+ strikeouts. Would it work? Probably not, but it would set the
plate for the 2013-2014 FA-trade market.

Adam Rubin
- It also is hard to fathom the Mets regularly going next season with an
all-lefty-hitting outfield of Lucas Duda in left
field, Kirk Nieuwenhuis in center and Mike Baxter in right. The Mets will add some
righty-hitting bat at some point this offseason, whether it is Scott Hairston, Cody Ross or some lesser-producing and
less-costly option. Still, for an organization that swears it has modestly more
money to spend this offseason, you have to wonder what exactly is going on.David Wright originally was due to make $16 million in
2013. Under his new deal, he officially is down to $11 million next season --
with $3 million deferred without interest, technically meaning Wright will get
half of his original number. Jason Bay, as part of his buyout, similarly
reduced his 2013 obligation from the Mets. Yet the Mets have been inactive in
free agency. Maybe Alderson has sticker shock. He's shopping for 1980s and
1990s prices and the going rate for free agents, while perhaps not sane, is the
reality of the marketplace. Whatever the ultimate reason, this much is clear:
Bringing back a comparable roster to the end of last season does not bode well
for 2013.

Rubin is surprisingly negative at
this point in the off-season, but he does bring up the same thing I’ve been
saying for a while. The Mets are keeping all this deferred money a little vague
but it seems to me that the 2013 payroll is around $57mil before trying to
figure out how much of the Bay money will count against 2013. I don’t care how
much you pay Ike Davis… the Mets are going to be
way under $100mil and just seem to be sitting out the whole process right now.

I’m used the being insulted like
this from the Wilpon family, but I had hoped Allderson was going to bring some
transparency to this team.